


The Beginning of Wisdom

by Eirenne Saijima (ladypoetess)



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 22:06:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladypoetess/pseuds/Eirenne%20Saijima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the young apprentice Wisdom gets a chance to go off on her own, Nynaeve finds that her grief over her parents' death has grown large enough to talk back to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beginning of Wisdom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tedronai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tedronai/gifts).



> I asked for suggestions for writing practice, and Tremaile offered the following prompt: Write a 14(ish)-year-old Nynaeve daydreaming - what would she daydream about? would she think daydreaming is silly/childish/beneath her dignity? would she be supposed to be doing something else?
> 
> I suspect this turned out a bit heavier and sadder than expected.

She didn't want any of it.

Not the responsibility of being a Wisdom's Apprentice, not the seemingly sure knowledge that she would be allowed to braid her hair younger than she'd ever expected, and least of all not the pitying looks of the other village folk in Emond's Field. Her father and mother had been dead only a few short months, and she would trade everything she had now, had possessed then, or would ever gain if it would bring back the only family she'd had.

Mistress Barran was patient with Nynaeve, but not endlessly so, and Nynaeve knew that. A grieving child would be afforded certain indulgences for a time, but Nynaeve was only a few years from being considered a woman in her own right, and a woman could not afford to wallow in grief this way.

That didn't mean she _cared_.

On days like this one, when the Emond's Field Wisdom sent her out to gather herbs from the countryside, Nynaeve could give in to the urge to let her mind wander. Under Mistress Barran's eye, Nynaeve never dared to daydream or loll about, because as much as she did not want any of the life that had been thrust upon her with the death of her father and mother, neither did she want to be considered a shiftless or bratty child. But here, walking along the edge of the wood with her eyes scanning the ground and up the trunks of the trees, no one would see to care if Nynaeve sometimes stopped to run her hand along the bark and remember the feeling of her arms around her father's neck after he'd come home from his tabac fields and sheep. Out here, there were none to scowl in disapproval if Nynaeve stopped beneath drooping tree branches and recalled Elnore's hearty laugh when she and her mother had walked under those same branches in years past.

Indeed, if she spent enough time here, she could almost feel as though she were out hunting with her father again, and that he was just over the ridge, waiting for her. She had been a better tracker than any of the girls her age, and most of the boys as well, thanks to her father's tutelage. She could draw and fire a Two River's longbow, but had always preferred slings and traps as being easier to move quickly and quietly in the woods. And right now, if she didn't look too hard, she could imagine that her father waited just beyond the far trees, tracking some other prey while she followed with her sling.

"Nynaeve, move girl - you don't stay upwind of the critter that's going to be your dinner, at least not if you want to _have_ it for dinner!" Master Al'Meara's voice was deep and amused behind her.

Nynaeve's eyes pricked with hot tears, but she kept her eyes resolutely on the wood in front of her and nodded as she unfastened the sling that she still wrapped around her waist whenever she rose and dressed. The herbs in her pouch now forgotten, Nynaeve hitched the skirt up a little higher and tucked her long dark hair into the back of her woolen dress as she carefully scanned the forest floor for signs of small prey.

"Look there, Nyn - seems some good size rabbits have been through here recently." Her father's voice was quiet, still positioned just behind her shoulder. _I will not look,_ she thought to herself. Instead, Nynaeve just nodded, barely, and followed the tracks through the underbrush, catching up three small rocks as she moved. It was only a few minutes before she found the warren and slipped a stone into her sling. All her focus now on the hunt and the prey, Nynaeve loosed her sling and saw one rabbit fall as she slipped a second stone into the small patch of leather and let it fly. The pride and exultation of succeeding at the hunt buoyed her up for a long moment while she secured the sling back about her waist.

And then Nynaeve stopped, eyes locked on the fallen prey but not seeing it. She waited, half holding her breath, until she heard her father's voice again.

"Good shots, both of them! You'll have some good rabbit stew tonight if you combine them with some of those herbs in your pouch." Nynaeve started guiltily and touched the pouch that had shifted to her hip, recalling that she was supposed to be gathering medicinal herbs for Doral Barran. Nervously, Nynaeve cleared her throat and spoke into the silent forest.

"I miss you, father. You and mother, both."

"I know you do, girl. You always will in some ways, because you never feel anything by half measures. You've always felt everything strongly, from the time you were a small scrap of a girl crawling at my feet and being told 'no' about playing with my bow and arrows." The sound of Nynaeve's choked sob was muffled by the trees, but sounded loud and harsh to her own ears.

"I'm to be the Wisdom here, after Mistress Barran."

"Then the Two Rivers will be fortunate to have someone so fierce and passionate to guide them. Doral is a good woman, and she will teach you well if you heed her words. Light send it is a long while before you need to step into her place, but she is not young, so learn well and fast, daughter." The tears were rolling silently down Nynaeve's face now, her breath catching on sobs every few heartbeats.

"What would you want for me, father? I am not likely to marry - at least, Wisdom's don't, generally."

"I would want you to be happy, to do your best at whatever path you choose for yourself, and not to chain yourself to ghosts of the past such that you rob your own future. I am gone, Nynaeve, but I will always be with you. I taught you well, and you learned well, and so there will always be some part of me that shines out through you, just as there will be some part of your mother that can be seen in you."

"I love you, father." When no response came, Nynaeve gasped and whipped around.

There was nothing there but a gust of wind that dried the tears still on Nynaeve's cheeks. After a moment of wildly casting her gaze about and finding nothing, Nynaeve stopped and closed her eyes. Breathing in and out slowly, she waited until her heartbeat had steadied again before opening her eyes. For the first time in the months since her parents had died, she felt a little calmer, a little more stable. In truth, she felt more _herself_ than she had since their death.

Smiling faintly, Nynaeve went to retrieve her rabbits.


End file.
